A leading figure in the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) has warned that the egg industry is facing a “perfect biological storm.”
Dr Brian Evans, deputy director of the OIE, was speaking at an avian influenza summit - held as part of the September conference of the International Egg Commission (IEC) in Berlin. The summit was organised following a series of serious outbreaks of avian influenza during the last year - the most serious one wiping out 35 million egg laying birds and six million pullets in the United States. The US epidemic has been described as the worst animal disease outbreak in the country’s history.
Dr Evans told delegates attending the summit that the current global distribution of new and emerging pathogens was unprecedented. “Epidemiological globalisation is here to stay. Mother nature is the ultimate bio-terrorist,” said Dr Evans, who said that effective bio-security required an integrated approach to risk management. “Everybody believes that their bio-security protocols are effective, but no-one knows how effective they are until they are challenged.”
One of those badly affected by the outbreak in the United States admitted to those attending the summit that he was not prepared for what happened. Jim Dean lost a total of eight million laying birds and one million pullets in the bird flu outbreak that swept through the US. “We thought we had the most robust bio-security programme we could think of,” he said. He said had undergone a Government audit in March and achieved a 100 per cent rating for bio-security. But he said, “What was acceptable bio-security before is no longer going to be acceptable. We didn’t have a preparedness plan. We will in
the future.”
Jim Dean said that when the AI struck, two farms were hit on the same day. Only able to cull 200,000 birds a day, it took three and a half weeks to get through five million birds, he said. “We just couldn’t stay ahead of the virus. It swept through buildings like a wave.” To add insult to injury, one of his farms that managed to avoid the bird flu outbreak was hit by a tornado.
Chad Gregory, the CEO of United Egg Producers, told delegates that the AI outbreak was the worst in United States history. “What happened in April, May, June and July was incredible and it was something I never want to repeat.” He said that the first confirmed case was on April 12. Over the coming months the outbreak destroyed 12 per cent of the national laying flock.
The birds that were lost accounted for one third of layers dedicated to the egg products market. The US had turned to other countries - mainly Mexico and European countries - to help fill the huge gaps in production. Chad Gregory said that 25 million dozen eggs had been imported for breaking and pasteurisation.
In the United Kingdom, a case of highly pathogenic avian influenza in July resulted in the culling of nearly 200,000 layers at Staveley’s Eggs near Preston in Lancashire, although the outbreak was contained. The farm housed both free range and cage birds. Andrew Joret, chairman of the British Egg Industry Council, told delegates that the free range birds picked up low path AI from ducks on a pond on the farm. This mutated into high path AI and infected the cage birds.
“If you have got a farm with outdoor access, the golden rule is there shouldn’t be any open water - and there was. Secondly, I would say you shouldn’t mix free range and colony. Have them on separate units because the bigger problem is dealing with the colony unit. The good thing about free range is the units are fairly small. If you have a problem you can get rid of it.”
He did accept that birds with outdoor access were inevitably at risk of coming into contact with wild birds. Scientist Dr Arjan Stegeman from Utrecht University in the Netherlands said that free range birds had a 6.6 per cent greater risk of contracting AI than housed birds. However, Andrew Joret said he did not think there was any evidence to suggest that outdoor access had been a significant factor in the spread of avian influenza across the United States.
Dr Stegeman said that, in any event, the industry would simply have to live with the risk until a solution was found for AI. “The trend towards more outdoor poultry will not change because there is a market for that.” He said precautions the industry could take would be to avoid placing outdoor units in areas where there were many outdoor birds. It could also avoid too great a density of poultry in one area.
Dr H M Hafez of the Institute of Poultry Diseases at the Free University of Berlin in Germany said that the development of effective vaccines was vital, although he said that where vaccines had been used at the moment, the injections failed in as many as 20 per cent of birds. Even where an injection was successful, the virus could quickly mutate into another strain of the disease.
A member of the audience called for greater use of vaccination, but Dr Stegeman said that his current experience of vaccines was that, whilst they may work under laboratory conditions, they could prove ineffective in the field.
Both Dr Alejandro Thiermann, adviser to the director general of OIE, and Dr Hafez told delegates that humans were the main cause of spread of disease. This was one area where egg producers should concentrate their efforts in preventing disease being carried onto the farm from elsewhere.
